


Going Green

by ficlicious



Series: SHIELD Academy for Avengers in Training [2]
Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU of an AU, Accidental Portals, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Twins, Better Living Through Chemistry, Comic Book Science, Explosions, F/M, For Science!, Science Bros, The Author Regrets Nothing, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6109693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>or, The Perils of Stark Twins Doing Science</b>
  <br/>
  <i>or, When Toni and Tony Met Bruce</i>
</p>
<p>Despite Clint’s best efforts, Toni meets Bruce in the cafeteria on a sunny Monday.</p>
<p>Clint's best efforts might need a bit of work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Green

**Author's Note:**

> Whelp. You ask, I answer. 
> 
> Here's your fic, foiks. 
> 
> (Be sure to read **Double Date** too! That's what really started this whole thing off, after all. :D )

Despite Clint’s best efforts, Toni meets Bruce in the cafeteria on a sunny Monday. He has only himself to blame for it, too. Toni normally doesn’t eat lunch on Mondays because she’s usually finalizing her weekend experiments, but it’s been three days since he’s seen her, so he dragged her out of the lab on the pretext of needing help with his chemistry, because Dr. Pym is the world’s biggest asshole and Clint doesn’t understand a word he says anyway. It’s the only reason she’s sitting at the table, chemistry textbook cracked open between them, explaining the material to him. It’s the only reason Bruce wanders over with his tray, attracted by the sound of someone talking science.

Clint’s best efforts might need a bit of work.

Bruce isn’t a bad guy. A bit on the weedy, nerdy side, and his glasses make his eyes look enormous, but rumor going around campus — courtesy of the resident gossip-monger, Jan van Dyne — is that he’s the third smartest science geek right behind the Tonys, and that he’s got no fear of lab accidents. Clint’s already had years shaved off his life by the Starks working together. Any more wild-eyed reckless idiots working with volatile chemicals and shouting _“For science!”_ at the same time just might end him altogether.

Especially since one of them wears power armor, another has nanites that heal all but the worst injuries in moments, and the third turns into angry, indestructible broccoli. If there’s a shred of self-preservation between the three of them, Clint will eat Natasha’s cooking. He dredges up a smile, even though he just wants to grab Toni’s hand and run screaming towards the exit. “Hey there,” he says. “What’s shaking?”

Bruce blushes, ducking his head. His bangs fall into his eyes, shading half his face from sight, and his fingers nervously fiddle with the edge of his napkin . “Um… can I, I mean, may I sit with you guys? I just... ” He gestures with the tray at the open textbook. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I…” His eyes crinkle at the corners in consternation. “I like chemistry,” he finishes lamely.

Toni is looking far too interested for Clint’s liking. He resists the urge to bang his head against the table. “Sure,” she says with a bright, welcoming smile, and starts shoving things aside to make room for Bruce’s tray. “Always room for another science bro at the table. I’m Toni Stark, by the way. This is my boyfriend, Clint. Or, if you prefer code names, Titania and Hawkeye.” She sticks out her hand, beaming. Clint is more reluctant, but he forces his smile back in place and also holds out his hand.

Bruce freezes in the process of sitting down, staring wide-eyed between their hands. “Um…” He carefully shakes, first Toni, then Clint. His grip is fleeting, but firm. “Bruce. Banner. Or… Hulk, I guess.” He finishes sitting down, pushes his glasses back up onto his nose.

Out of the corner of his eye, Clint sees the moment Toni identifies Bruce’s code name. Her expression shifts from friendly interest, through appraisal, and straight into awed recognition. She smiles delightedly, eyes sparkling and widening. “Oh! Bruce Banner. _The_ Bruce Banner? Oh my god! I read your paper on anti-electron collisions. Mind-blowing stuff.”

Bruce blinks owlishly at her. “You… read my paper?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m a physicist, of course I read it! I mean, your paper didn’t conclusively answer the question as to whether or not ultra-high energy cosmic rays are actually extragalactic in origin, but I think that—”

Clint actually does thump his head on the table this time, even as his brain fuzzes out from the technobabble being spewed. Toni’s going on full-on fangirl now, just like she did before she found out that Hank Pym was as crazy as a bag full of cats. Any minute now, she’s going to—

“Hang on,” she says, and her Starkphone comes out of her bag. “Lemme text Tony. He’s got to meet you too.”

Clint groans, forehead still against the table. “Aw, dammit,” he mutters.

The rapid tapping pauses. “You say something, babe?” Toni asks.

“No,” he says, lifts his head far enough to rub his eyes with the heels of both hands. “Not a thing.”

She cards a hand through his hair, and he raises his head the rest of the way to meet her eyes, which are big and blue and full of worry. “Are you sure, Clint? You seem upset.”

He loves that Toni’s so concerned about him. He just wishes she’d be more concerned about herself. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He rises out of his chair, leans in and kisses her. She makes a muffled noise of surprise against his mouth, but melts into it a second later. Bruce is bright red when Clint pulls back, the kind of embarrassment people get when confronted by PDAs.  “I just remembered that I gotta go to the range, is all. Evaluations are this week. Meet up with you later?”

“Of course!” She smiles up at him. “I’m in the lab til five. Text me then?”

“You got it.” He extricates himself from the table’s bench, steals another kiss, and flicks a casual wave at Bruce. “Nice meeting you, Banner,” he says.

“You too,” Bruce mumbles.

Maybe if he goes to shoot the mechs at the Robo-Dojo, he can forget the deep sense of foreboding settling in the pit of his stomach. Toni and Tony and Bruce… this is not going to end well for anyone.  

\-------

By the time Clint’s arms are tired from shooting things, Natasha comes to find him. Well, she doesn’t find him so much as she pops out of the ground behind him, via a secret panel that suddenly yawns open at his feet, scaring the bejesus out of him and sending him jumping into the lane divider.

“I really freaking hate it when you do that,” he complains with a glare, once his heart is convinced it’s not having an attack and his lungs remember how to breathe.

Natasha shrugs with that aggravating smile she’s so good at giving. “Why do you think I do it?”

He eyes her, eyebrow raised. She’s dressed head to toe in white fur and leather, with a ridiculous hat and big, black sunglasses. “You look like every crappy Soviet spy stereotype ever,” he says flatly. “This is New York, and it’s summer. White blends in with nothing.”

She eyes him right back over the top of her sunglasses, folds her arms across her chest. “I’m just that good, Barton,” she says. _“You_ didn’t see me coming.”

The leather wrapping the grip of his bow creaks under his tightening fist. “You were underground! It doesn’t count if you’re _literally_ not in sight!”

“What exactly do you think stealth is?” she says, with a smug smirk.

He can actually feel the vein in his temple throbbing. Debates the benefits of just letting it go versus continuing to argue with someone who, no matter what her actual opinions are, enjoys nothing more than twisting other people up. “Forget it,” he says tiredly. “What’s up, Tasha?”

She shrugs, like she hasn't a care in the world, but he knows that’s just a clever facade. There's more than one reason his codename is Hawkeye. Natasha is desperately lonely. She’s paranoid and suspicious and has impulse control problems. Clint may actually be her _only_ friend. She manages to anger just about everyone who teaches or goes to the Academy, because she’s constantly spying on them and trying to rope them into her crazy conspiracy theories. Clint doesn’t care, though. His biggest secrets are where he hides his stash of Toni pictures, and since he never locks his desk drawer, it’s not that big of a secret.

“Come run the course with me at HQ,” she says, less of an invite and more of a command. Still, he can tell the difference. As imperious as it sounds, it actually is a request.

“We did that last week,” he says with a frown.

She shrugs again. “They've upgraded it. I want to see how good it is.”

He desperately wants to tell her no, but he’s afraid she’s going to jump out of the floorboards of his dorm room in the dead of night to drag him off if he refuses her now. He pulls out his phone to check the time. Half past two. He should have enough time for a quick run, he supposes, though he knows as well as he knows his own name that nothing ever goes according to the estimated timeline. “I have to be done by five,” he says, sliding his phone back in his pocket. “That's when Toni said she'll be finished in the lab.”

Natasha pauses, sliding her shades halfway down her nose with one hand. “You're completely whipped,” she says archly. “Soon, you’re going to have dinner on the table for when your genius wife comes through the door after a long day of winning bread and bringing home bacon.”

Clint scowls, feels the vein in his temple start to throb again. He turns away abruptly and begins packing up his bow, shutting down the lane he used. “There's a line, Tasha,” he says, irked. “You're way over it. Even though, yeah, okay. If one of us has to cook, it’s going to be me because Toni? Can make water catch on fire if it’s on the stove. But just because I like to keep my word when I say I’m going to meet someone does not mean I’m _whipped.”_

Behind him, Natasha is silent as he finishes clearing away the broken arrows, tucking salvageable arrowheads back into his quiver. “I’m sorry,” she finally says, soft and uncertain. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yes you did,” Clint replies, and closes his bow case a tad more forcefully than he meant to. “But it’s fine. Just don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” Natasha says, and the faint look of guilt on her face is the equivalent of anyone else dropping to their knees and begging for forgiveness.

They start walking, heading past Rhodes in the War Machine armor, using the big gun mounted on his shoulder to pop some targets, hit one of the main walkways and head towards the quad. The SHIELD HQ building is just on the other side, tucked into the quietest, most defensible corner the campus boasts.

For everyone’s safety, Pym’s lab is located on the far side of campus, beside the waterfront. Clint’s still not sure who gave him a teaching position, since he disdains everyone not half as intelligent as he is, but he’s another one that makes Fury look like a comfort-frosted cupcake by comparison. Clint isn’t going to be able to see Toni inside, not even if she’s right next to a window. It’s simply too far for even his eyesight. Still, it’s nice to imagine she’s in there, leaning on a window, looking out in case she can catch a glimpse of him.

“It’s kinda sad,” Natasha says, interrupting his daydreaming. He glances at her. She’s watching him with a lip curled in scorn, but deep concern in her eyes. “You’re attached to Stark, you know.”

His shoulders bunch into uncomfortable, unhappy knots. He knows where she's going with this. “Yeah, and? What’s your point?”

Natasha’s lip curls further. “Don’t brush me off, Barton. I remember what happened with Mockingbird. You left school for two months until she graduated up to SHIELD. You’re ten times deeper into Toni. What happens when you break up?”

Clint takes a deep breath, and then another, and then another. He’s so angry with Natasha right now, he wants to turn around and walk away, just wait outside the lab for the next two and a half hours. “That’s different,” he says through clenched teeth. “Toni’s not ever going to cheat on me. I don’t have to worry about it.”

Natasha snorts delicately. “You should always worry about—”

**_KABOOM_ **

There’s a ringing in his ears and a rainbow haze across his eyes. The air is thick with dust and debris, and Clint is flat on his back on the ground with no memory of how he ended up there. He shakes his head woozily, trying to clear the haziness, blinking and squinting in the sudden murk. “Wha..?”

Natasha is on her feet, looks like she might not have gotten knocked down, except that her white clothes are now muddy brown, and her sunglasses and hat are gone. She cranes her neck, peering straight up at the sky, with an open expression of awe. Confused, Clint follows her gaze, blinking as he registers what he’s looking at.

The sky is a streaming rainbow, stabbing down at Pym Labs and surrounding it with pulsating color and light that hammers into the ground with a force that Clint can feel rumbling under his toes.

And then it’s gone. All of it. The rainbow torrent, the dust, the debris. Everything is still and quiet. Across the quad, Kamala is picking herself up off the ground, gathering her spilled books and scattered papers with her stretching abilities. The robot bartender at Club A reappears over the bar top, and starts wiping it down with a rag.

Clint and Natasha exchange uneasy looks. The low-key dread that's been rumbling in the pit of his stomach since he left Toni unsupervised with Bruce is now a screeching crescendo. “I really don't wanna know,” he says softly.

“Me neither,” Natasha replies, just as softly.  

An earth shattering roar breaks the stillness, and Clint jumps a mile out of his skin. The front wall of the lab complex all but disintegrates as something big, green and bulky smashes through it. Clint and Natasha dive in opposite directions as the Hulk plows into the quad, tearing through the flagstones and concrete like paper and skidding to a stop against the wall of the archives. He stays there dazed for a moment, before ponderously getting back on his feet, slamming both hands into the ground, and roaring a challenge in the direction he’d come.

Five armed and armored figures stride out of the wreckage of the lab. The lead is a tall, muscled blond in shining armor and an honest-to-dog cape, carrying a hammer. Behind him, a woman with a shield and spear, and three other men, a thin blond with a rapier, a black-haired man with a mace and a stout axe-wielder with a thick, curly red beard.

Clint and Natasha exchange another glance, significant and silent. They've been around Loki and Amara long enough to recognize the haughty swagger in all of them. Asgardians. “Goddammit, Toni,” Clint mutters, eying the wreckage of the lab and swallowing down the lump at the thought of her buried under rubble somewhere. “Goddammit, Toni. What did you do this time?”

Belatedly, the campus alarms begin blaring, and Fury’s voice, tinny from the PA, announces: “Avengers, assemble! We have a Code Green on the quad! I repeat, Code Green on the quad! All available Avengers report to SHIELD headquarters for assignments and damage control!”

The blond in the cape grins as the Hulk roars again and charges towards them, spinning his hammer. “Ha! The beast was hit by Mjolnir, but still has fight in him! I like these Midgardian champions. Warriors, Lady Sif! Let us oblige him with a proper battle!”

“At least they have the courtesy to start with the big one,” the sandy blond cries cheerfully, brandishing his rapier.

“The All-Father isn't going to like this,” says the woman, but readies her shield and shakes her dark hair back.

“Then let him come collect us,” Red Beard says, swinging his axe off his shoulder. “Until then, we fight, and then we feast!”

“Aye!” Blondie cries, and rushes forward to meet the Hulk with the other four behind him.

“Aaaand _this_ is where the normal, unaugmented squishy human leaves,” Clint says, scrambling out of the way of the thundering behemoths. He’s lost track of Natasha, but she can take care of herself. She’s probably underground again anyway, slipping away through one of those secret panels into the underground tunnels. He cuts wide around the edges of the quad, jumping over flying bricks, and bolts for the smoking lab wreckage. “Toni! _Toni!”_

Jagged boards and broken concrete chunks shift as he approaches, and a red and gold hand claws its way out. Iron Man pulls himself out, shoving debris aside to clear a path. “You rang, honey?”

“Not you!” Clint snaps. “Where’s your sister?”

“Right behind me.” Iron Man clears the hole, and the boot jets light up as he jumps into the air. “You are right behind me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Toni’s gauntlet slams down onto the lip of the opening, and she pulls herself out by the fingertips, silver and blue armor already retracting into her skin. Her hair is white with dust, and blood covers half her face, but she looks otherwise unharmed. She flops back on her backside, panting. “We are so dead,” she groans with her eyes closed.

Tony is hidden behind the golden faceplate of the Iron Man helmet, but he’s turned towards the battle raging in the middle of the campus. “We summoned Asgardians,” he says, sounding slightly awed. “Cool!”

“No!” Toni snaps, before Clint has a chance to open his mouth. “No, not cool! We were doing _chemistry,_ Tony! _Chemistry_ is not supposed to open a freaking Einstein-Rosen bridge!” Clint reassesses her _looks undamaged_ assessment as she winces and presses a hand to her ribs. “Ow, dammit! That hurts!”

He reaches down for her, gently but firmly takes her hands. “Anthony, go report to HQ. Assembly’s been called.” Iron Man gives a two-fingered tip of the hat, and flies off with a cheery whoop. Clint watches him go, shaking his head. Then he turns back to Toni. “Let’s figure all the science crap out later, huh? We need to get you to medical.”

She glares up at him, mouth open and eyes flashing. He narrows his eyes at her, and she snaps her mouth shut again. “Yeah, okay,” she mutters, and her hand tightens on his wrist, fingers hooking into the strap of his bracer. “Help me up.”

\------

It takes two and a half hours to reach Odin on Asgard, but once apprised of the situation, he is swift to get it in check. Perhaps not swift enough, though, because the laboratory, the archive and the clock tower are nearly totalled. Nothing escaped unscathed, but Clint mourns the loss of the clock tower above all other buildings. It was high and sturdy, and he liked perching up there when he wants to be alone.

The dressing-down by Administrator Potts is almost anticlimactic, but Director Fury’s is downright chilling. Clint hopes he never sees Fury that close to an aneurysm again. He's used to Fury's bad moods, and Fury's unamused flint eye, but this incident drove him past rage and straight into quiet, clipped calm.

The Asgardians, who turn out to be Prince Thor Odinson, Lady Sif, Thor’s intended, and the Warriors Three — who each have names Clint can’t be bothered to remember — are profusely apologetic and immediately submit to Fury’s demands and Odin’s orders to assist in the cleanup and restoration. For some reason, Clint also gets roped into pushing a broom around the wrecked quad, even though he had absolutely nothing to do with the fight _or_ the accidental portal to another dimension. Tony and Bruce take the brunt of the punishment once it’s revealed that the Science Bros (as they apparently call themselves) were tweaking chemical formulas to incorporate synthetic vibranium in the admixtures, which apparently Tony keeps on hand in the lab.

Bruce takes it like a champ, shame-faced and silent, but Tony complains the whole time. And if he doesn’t shut up and actually work, Clint might just shoot him on principle.

“How come you get to sit there?” Tony says for the tenth time, gauntleted hands on his armored hips, and glaring once again at his sister.

Toni is sprawled out in a lounge chair, eyes half-closed as she directs the Stark robots in assisting with the cleanup. Her eyes open all the way and focus, and she rolls them in exasperation. “Next time, Giant Man can fall on _you_ when the ceiling comes down on his head,” she said peevishly. “I have three broken ribs. I have to sit until they heal. Pepper said so.”

Tony glowers. “You heal almost as fast as Steve,” he grouses. “Don’t tell me your nanites can’t handle a couple of broken bones.”

“Of course they can,” Toni says placidly, and she sips her high-protein shake. “But even they take time to fix crush injuries. Seriously, you think this is fun for me? Painkillers don’t work on me, so this actually kinda sucks a lot. You want to sit down so bad, I’m gonna shove _you_ under Dr. Pym next time.”

Clint’s getting good at sensing Stark twin fights when they’re brewing. He shakes his head and shoves his push broom along. “What were you guys trying to do anyway?” he asks, mostly to change the subject. He really doesn’t care, but he doesn’t want more trouble heaped on their heads than they’re already in.

The twins share a brief, significant look and turn back to him with identical expressions of consternation, guilt and annoyance. “New fuel,” Toni says with a sigh. “We were trying to figure out the formula for what basically amounts to a liquid arc reactor.”

“Didn’t quite work out that way,” Tony adds, uncharacteristically somber. “I may have irradiated the mixture with a burst from my arc reactor. I think that’s where we went wrong,” he says to Toni. “It reacted with the raw vibranium in the solution and…” He shakes his head, mimes a blowing-up gesture with his hands. “Next time, we’ll get it right.”

Clint arches both eyebrows, which go so high they’re practically crawling into his hairline. “Next time? What do you mean, next time? Wasn’t this time damaging enough?”

Tony scoffs, and hoists a chunk of debris the size of a small car over his shoulder plate. “Cautious scientists don’t win Nobel prizes,” he says, and turns away to bring it to the rubble pile.

“At the rate you’re going,” Clint calls after him, “they’ll award yours posthumously.”

“... Sorry, babe,” Toni says, subdued, and he turns around to face her. She smiles tremulously at him and gulps back the rest of her shake with a grimace of distaste. “We were just trying to go green.”

Clint arches an eyebrow and just looks at her for a moment, then glances at Bruce, then back to Toni. “Going green was definitely the problem,” he says wryly. “Next time, try a different color. It’ll be safer.”

**Author's Note:**

> Next up is **Sure Shot** where, in the spirit of _How I Met Your Mother_ 's Slapsgiving bet, Tony argues with Clint that his repulsor tech can beat out a stupid bow and arrow any day of the week.
> 
> I am also taking prompt requests for this AU, either here in the comments, or at my [tumblr](http://mystillyoungself-ficlicious.tumblr.com/). Ask anonymously, send a message, blog and tag me, s'all good to me. :)


End file.
